LIBRARY 

OF  THE 


University  of  California. 


OIFT    OF 


Class 


jWoDem  Kelffitott^  pvoUtxa^ 

EDITED  BY 

AMBROSE  WHITE   VERNON 


THE  HISTORICAL  AND 
RELIGIOUS  VALUE  OF 
THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL 


BY 


ERNEST   F.  SCOTT,  D.  D. 

PROFESSOR   OF  CHURCH   HISTORY   IN   QUEEN'S   UNIVERSITY, 
KINGSTON,  CANADA 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

(ftbt  0i\jer?itie  J^tz0  Cambridge 

1909 


^^l\ 


t'4 


COPYRIGHT,   1909,   BY  ERNEST  F.   SCOTT 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  October ^  jqOQ 


CONTENTS 

I. 

Introductory 

I 

II. 

Authorship 

.     5 

11. 

General  Characteristics 

15 

[V. 

Subordinate  Aims 

19 

V.  New  Presentation  of  Christianity  28 

VI.  The  Logos  33 

VII.  The  Death  of  Christ  41 

VIII.  Light  and  Life  46 

IX.  Man's  Relation  to  the  Life-Giver  57 

X.  The  Eternal  Christ  66 

XL  Permanent  Value  of  the  Gospel      75 


235440 


THE  HISTORICAL  AND 

RELIGIOUS  VALUE  OF  THE 

FOURTH  GOSPEL 

I.   INTRODUCTORY 

Every  reader  of  the  New  Testament  is 
conscious  of  a  difference  when  he  passes 
from  the  first  three  Gospels  to  the  Gospel 
of  John.  The  earlier  Gospels  are  distinct  in 
character  from  one  another,  and  are  some- 
times at  variance  in  their  record  of  facts; 
but  they  all  present  the  same  general  pic- 
ture of  our  Lord's  life  and  teaching.  They 
are  termed  the  "Synoptic  Gospels,"  since 
they  deal  substantially  with  a  common  ma- 
terial from  a  common  point  of  view.  The 
fourth  evangelist,  like  the  other  three,  is 
concerned  with  the  life  of  Jesus,  and  repro- 
duces the  familiar  story  in  its  main  outline 


.  .  THE   FOURTH  GOSPEL 

and  in 'many  of  its  more  striking  details. 
But  we  feel  at  once  that  the  portrait  is 
different  Our  Lord  as  he  appears  in  the 
fourth  Gospel  is  no  longer  a  prophet  and 
teacher,  but  the  manifest  Son  of  God.  He 
speaks  not  in  vivid  saying  and  parable,  but 
in  the  language  of  a  mystical  theology.  The 
message  of  the  Kingdom,  which  forms  the 
one  subject  of  his  teaching  in  the  Synoptic 
Gospels,  falls  practically  out  of  sight,  and 
our  attention  is  fixed  instead  on  his  own 
personality,  in  its  relation  to  God  and  its 
significance  for  the  world.  We  discover, 
on  closer  examination,  that  this  Gospel 
differs  from  the  others,  not  only  in  its  gen- 
eral view  of  the  nature  of  Christ's  mission, 
but  in  its  reading  of  the  history  itself.  The 
chief  scene  of  our  Lord's  ministry,  which 
was  Galilee  according  to  the  Synoptic  re- 
cords, is  placed  in  Jerusalem.  The  time 
covered  by  the  ministry  is  extended  from 
one  year  to  three.  Important  incidents  are 


INTRODUCTORY 

transposed  into  a  new  setting;  or  they  are 
omitted  altogether^  while  others,  unknown 
to  the  previous  Gospels,  take  their  place. 
Even  where  the  fourth  evangelist  is  in 
closest  agreement  with  the  Synoptists,  he 
never  fails  to  introduce  some  modification 
in  detail,  often  of  such  a  nature  as  to  change 
the  whole  meaning  of  the  event. 

These  peculiarities  in  the  Gospel  are  all 
the  more  difficult  to  explain  in  view  of  the 
traditional  theory  of  its  authorship.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Synoptic  records, 
on  the  face  of  them,  bear  more  convincing 
marks  of  authenticity.  They  describe  the 
incidents  of  our  Lord's  life  in  a  natural  se- 
quence, and  set  them  in  intelligible  relation 
to  well-known  facts  of  contemporary  Jew- 
ish history.  Their  account  of  his  works  and 
sayings  is  consistent  and  life-like,  and  seems 
to  embody  the  reminiscences  of  actual  eye- 
witnesses. A  thoughtful  reader  who  stud- 
ied the   Gospels  for  the  first  time,  with 

3 


THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL 

nothing  to  guide  him  but  his  own  impres- 
sions, would  almost  certainly  conclude  that 
the  Synoptists  gave  him  the  facts,  while  in 
John  the  facts  were  interpreted  and  ideal- 
ised. But  this  judgment  which  we  should 
otherwise  pass  with  little  hesitation,  has 
been  complicated  by  the  generally  ac- 
cepted view  of  the  authorship  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  In  the  epilogue  with  which  it  closes 
it  is  expressly  assigned  to  the  "beloved 
disciple"  of  Jesus, — the  disciple  who  has 
been  identified,  from  a  very  early  time, 
with  John  the  son  of  Zebedee.  If  we  admit 
this  evidence  as  to  its  origin,  we  have  little 
choice  but  to  grant  it  a  higher  claim  to 
authenticity  than  any  of  the  other  Gospels. 
It  comes  to  us,  not  as  a  comparatively  late 
compilation,  woven  out  of  stray  fragments 
of  surviving  tradition^  but  as  a  first-hand 
narrative  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  written  by 
that  disciple  who  knew  him  best. 


AUTHORSHIP 

II.   AUTHORSHIP 

In  modern  times  the  authorship  of  the 
fourth  Gospel  has  been  the  subject  of  rig- 
orous investigation.  The  discussion  has 
now  been  in  process  for  nearly  a  hundred 
years,  and  is  by  no  means  closed;  but  the 
weight  of  scholarly  opinion  is  settling  down 
to  a  conviction  that  the  traditional  theory 
must  be  abandoned.  It  is  not  the  purpose 
of  this  little  book  to  deal  with  the  "Johan- 
nine  problem/'  the  most  involved  and  diffi- 
cult of  all  the  problems  which  have  arisen 
out  of  the  critical  study  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. A  few  sentences,  however,  will  be 
enough  to  indicate  at  least  the  main  reasons 
for  the  conclusion  that  the  author  of  this 
Gospel  was  not  the  Apostle  John. 

(i)  The  book  itself  makes  no  claim  to 
Apostolic  authorship.  It  is  now  generally 
agreed  that  the  closing  chapter,  in  which 
alone  such  a  claim  is  suggested,  is  of  the 

5 


THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL 

nature  of  an  appendix,  added  by  a  different 
hand  to  the  original  work.  This  is  obviously 
true  of  the  concluding  verses  of  the  chap- 
ter. They  purport  to  be  written  not  by  the 
author  himself,  but  by  some  body  of  wit- 
nesses, who  set  their  imprimatur  on  his 
book.  The  appendix  was  no  doubt  added 
at  an  early  date;  but  we  cannot  infer  with 
any  certainty  that  its  account  of  the  origin 
of  the  Gospel  is  more  than  conjectural. 
There  would  indeed  have  been  no  occa- 
sion for  the  calling  in  of  witnesses,  if  the 
authorship  had  been  definitely  known  from 
the  beginning.  In  any  case,  it  is  noticeable 
that  the  Gospel  is  assigned,  in  general 
terms,  to  a  beloved  disciple.  The  writer 
of  the  appendix  seems  to  find  this  disciple 
in  John  the  son  of  Zebedee,  but  guards 
himself  against  any  express  identification. 

(2)   The  external  evidence  for  the  Jo- 
hannine  authorship  is  far  from  conclusive. 
It  ultimately  rests  on  the  testimony  of  Ire- 
6 


AUTHORSHIP 

naeus,  toward  the  end  of  the  second  century, 
and  there  are  reasons  for  supposing  that 
he  confused  the  Apostle  John  with  another 
John,  who  was  a  prominent  figure  in  the 
early  history  of  the  church  in  Asia  Minor. 
Traces  of  an  acquaintance  with  the  Gospel 
can  be  discovered  in  patristic  literature  be- 
fore the  time  of  Irenaeus;  but  these  prove 
at  most  that  the  work  was  current  at 
an  earlier  date  than  has  sometimes  been 
granted.  If  the  Apostolic  authorship  was 
matter  of  common  knowledge,  we  should 
doubtless  have  found  constant  reference  to 
the  Gospel  in  the  literature  of  the  second 
century.  As  it  is,  the  few  vague  quotations 
and  reminiscences  which  prove  its  exist- 
ence, seem  also  to  indicate  that  it  held  a 
subordinate  place  among  the  scriptures  of 
the  church.  The  tradition  that  John  wrote 
our  Gospel  has  therefore  little  evidence  to 
support  it;  and  we  have  further  to  reckon 
with  a  counter-tradition.  It  is  known  that 

7 


THE  FOURTH   GOSPEL 

at  least  one  sect  in  the  early  church  refused 
to  admit  the  Johannine  authorship.  Little 
is  told  us  about  this  sect  or  the  grounds  on 
which  it  took  up  its  position;  but  we  may 
reasonably  infer,  from  the  mere  fact  of  its 
appearance,  that  the  Gospel  established  itself 
with  some  difficulty.  Its  origin  was  involved 
in  obscurity;  and  the  church  consented 
slowly,  and  not  without  misgiving,  to  ac- 
cept it  as  the  work  of  John. 

(3)  The  relation  of  the  fourth  Gospel 
to  the  other  three  is  of  such  a  nature  that 
we  cannot  well  conceive  the  possibility  of 
Johannine  authorship.  On  the  one  hand, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  Synoptic  account  is 
greatly  modified,  alike  in  its  general  fea- 
tures and  in  details.  An  eye-witness  of  the 
events  could  hardly  have  allowed  himself 
those  many  departures  from  what,  to  all 
appearance,  is  the  correct  historical  tradi- 
tion. On  the  other  hand,  the  fourth  evan- 
gelist, while  he  modifies  the  Synoptic 
8 


AUTHORSHIP 

account,  is  manifestly  dependent  on  it 
throughout.  Again  and  again  he  borrows 
the  very  words  of  his  predecessors.  Al- 
most all  the  incidents  he  records  are  de- 
rived, more  or  less  obviously,  from  the 
Synoptic  narrative.  Even  where  he  appears 
to  have  least  in  common  with  the  other 
evangelists,  we  can  usually  discover  that 
he  is  working  on  some  suggestion  which 
they  have  offered  him.  An  apostle  who 
had  his  own  store  of  personal  reminiscence 
from  which  to  draw,  would  not  have  leaned 
in  this  manner  on  written  documents;  and 
there  seems  to  be  no  escape  from  the  con- 
clusion that  the  fourth  evangelist  was  not 
one  of  the  original  witnesses  of  the  life  of 
Jesus,  but  a  later,  derivative  writer.  His 
divergences  from  the  Synoptic  record  are  ■ 
to  be  explained  by  his  remoteness  from  the 
facts  which  he  describes.  He  is  no  longer 
in  a  position  to  see  the  life  of  Jesus  in  its 
historical  surroundings  and  under  its  true 

9 


THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL 

character  as  a  human  life.  The  events  have 
all  receded  into  the  distance,  so  that  he  is 
free  to  deal  with  them  imaginatively,  in 
their  ideal  and  spiritual  import. 

(4)  The  crucial  argument  against  the 
traditional  theory  is  to  be  found  in  the  in- 
ternal character  of  the  Gospel.  Its  portrait 
of  Jesus  is  dominated  by  certain  concep- 
tions of  his  work  and  nature  which  were 
not  possible  to  a  thinker  of  the  primitive 
age.  The  evangelist  has  steeped  himself 
in  the  teaching  of  Paul.  He  has  combined 
the  Pauline  speculations  with  those  of  Alex- 
andrian philosophy.  His  mind  is  set,  not  so 
much  on  the  literal  facts  of  his  narrative, 
as  on  the  meanings  which  had  been  at- 
tached to  them  in  the  light  of  subsequent 
doctrine.  Now  it  may  fairly  be  maintained 
that  an  aged  apostle,  after  a  life-time  of 
deep  Christian  experience,  would  be  filled 
with  a  sense  of  the  divine  significance  of 
the  events  which  he  had  witnessed.  His 
10 


AUTHORSHIP 

remembrance  of  them  would  be  inter- 
woven, almost  unconsciously,  with  the 
thoughts  and  surmises  they  had  awakened 
in  him  long  afterwards.  But  in  the  fourth 
Gospel  we  have  something  more  than  this 
natural  blending  of  memory  and  reflec- 
tion. The  history  is  subordinated  to  the 
theology.  The  writer  appears  to  value  it 
chiefly  as  a  proof  and  illustration  of  the 
doctrinal  ideas  with  which  he  approaches 
it.  We  cannot  believe  that  one  who  had 
known  Jesus  in  the  flesh,  and  who  had 
been  nearer  to  him  than  any  other,  would 
thus  have  presented  the  Master's  life.  His 
reflections  on  the  meaning  of  the  life  could 
never  have  displaced  his  interest  in  the  life 
itself.  As  it  is,  the  Gospel  is  the  work  of 
a  great  religious  thinker,  who  has  entered 
profoundly  into  spiritual  fellowship  with 
Christ.  But  it  lacks  the  warm  colours  and 
the  definite  outlines  of  personal  reminis- 
cence. The  evangelist,  like  Paul,  is  "one 
II 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

born  out  of  due  time,"  who  has  not  wit- 
nessed the  earthly  life  of  Jesus  except 
through  the  eyes  of  others. 

The  fourth  Gospel,  therefore,  cannot  be 
attributed  to  the  Apostle  John,  and  the  real 
secret  of  its  authorship  seems  to  be  irre- 
coverably lost.  Many  attempts  have  been 
made  in  recent  times  to  connect  it  with 
some  particular  name ;  but  with  our  scanty 
knowledge  of  the  early  history  of  the 
church,  they  are  hazardous  at  the  best. 
The  evangelist  himself  remains  unknown. 
All  that  we  can  do  is  to  distinguish,  within 
certain  limits,  the  place  and  time  in  which 
he  composed  his  work.  From  various  in- 
dications, both  internal  and  external,  we 
can  infer  that  he  belonged  to  Asia  Minor, 
and  probably  to  the  region  of  Ephesus. 
His  date  has  been  much  disputed;  but  the 
evidence  would  seem  to  point,  more  and 
more  decisively,  to  some  time  within  the 
first  two  decades  of  the  second  century. 

12 


AUTHORSHIP 

Though  considerably  later  than  the  Synop- 
tic records,  the  fourth  Gospel  is  thus  an 
early  work,  removed  by  only  one  genera- 
tion from  the  Apostolic  Age.  It  is  even 
possible  that  the  Gospel  as  we  have  it  was 
based  on  an  earlier  writing,  in  which  case 
its  original  sections  would  fall  within  the 
first  century.  This  opinion  is  held  by  sev- 
eral notable  scholars  in  our  day;  but  in 
view  of  the  uniform  character  of  the  work, 
alike  in  its  language  and  its  teaching, 
it  must  be  regarded  as  more  than  doubt- 
ful. 

The  early  date  of  the  Gospel  must  be 
taken  into  account  before  we  refuse  it  any 
value  as  a  historical  document.  At  a  period 
when  men  were  still  living  who  had  listened 
to  the  Apostles,  many  recollections  of  the 
life  of  Christ  must  have  been  current  in 
the  church.  The  evangelist  would  doubt- 
less make  use  of  the  oral  tradition,  as  he 
did  of  the  written  record.  There  are  several 
13 


THE   FOURTH  GOSPEL 

historical  questions  of  capital  importance 
(e.  g'.y  the  length  of  our  Lord's  ministry, 
the  procedure  followed  at  the  trial,  the 
date  of  the  Crucifixion)  in  which  the  evi- 
dence of  the  fourth  Gospel  seems  prefer- 
able to  that  of  the  other  three.  It  is  by  no 
means  improbable  that  the  writer  had  ac- 
cess to  sources  of  information  which  en- 
abled him  to  correct  or  supplement  the 
account  of  the  Synoptists.  From  the  same 
sources  he  may  have  derived  not  a  few  of 
the  sayings  and  incidents  which  are  pecul- 
iar to  himself,  and  which  have  been  set 
down,  too  hastily,  as  free  additions.  Allow- 
ing, however,  for  all  this  possible  use  of 
authentic  material,  we  cannot  unreservedly 
accept  the  testimon)^  of  the  fourth  Gospel 
on  any  matter  of  historical  fact.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  all  the  material  has  undergone  a 
process.  From  whatever  source  he  derived 
it,  —  whether  from  our  Synoptic  Gospels  or 
from  other  traditions,  equally  trustworthy, 

H 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

—  the  writer  has  moulded  it  anew  and 
brought  it  into  harmony  with  his  own  con- 
ceptions. What  we  have  before  us  now  is 
not  the  literal  history  of  our  Lord's  life^  but 
the  Johannine  interpretation  of  that  life. 

III.   GENERAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

The  process  to  which  the  history  has 
been  subjected  will  be  better  understood, 
if  we  look  briefly  at  two  outstanding  charac- 
teristics of  the  Gospel. 

(i)  In  the  first  place,  the  writer  views  all 
the  facts  not  as  they  are  in  themselves,  but 
through  an  atmosphere  of  symbolism.  It  was 
already  observed  by  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century,  that 
"since  the  bodily  things  had  been  exhibited 
in  the  other  Gospels,  John,  inspired  by  the 
Spirit,  produced  a  spiritual  Gospel."  This 
"spiritualising"  of  the  history  is  manifestly 
his  aim  throughout.  Impressed  by  the  infi- 
nite significance  of  the  revelation  in  Christ, 

15 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

he  sees  a  deeper  meaning  in  all  the  exter- 
nal incidents.  He  presents  them  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  fact  becomes  the  transpar- 
ent veil  of  some  inward  religious  idea.  The 
symbolic  value  which  is  thus  attached  to 
the  life  of  Jesus  can  be  discerned  most 
clearly  in  the  case  of  the  miracles.  As  the 
evangelist  regards  them  they  are  not 
merely  works  of  power  or  beneficence,  but 
"  signs,"  pointing  to  some  truth  beyond 
themselves;  and  his  account  of  each  of 
them  is  followed  by  a  discourse,  in  which 
this  deeper  truth  is  expounded.  We  are 
meant  to  understand  that  the  actual  deed 
of  miracle  was  only  the  expression,  under 
a  visible  type,  of  something  that  has  an 
abiding  reality  in  the  spiritual  world.  In 
like  manner  all  the  circumstances  of  the 
life  of  Christ  —  down  even  to  accidental 
details  —  were  of  the  nature  of  signs. 
Names  of  places,  numbers,  casual  coinci- 
dences, are  carefully  recorded,  in  order  to 
i6 


GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

draw  attention  to  the  hidden  import  sug- 
gested by  them.  The  history  resolves  itself 
at  every  point  into  a  kind  of  allegory  which 
cannot  be  rightly  apprehended  without  a 
key.  In  this  way  we  must  explain  the  lib- 
erties, strange  to  our  modern  mind,  which 
the  writer  continually  takes  with  historical 
facts.  The  event  as  it  happened  was  to  him 
the  adumbration,  necessarily  dim  and  im- 
perfect, of  a  spiritual  idea.  His  interest  is 
in  the  idea,  which  he  regards  as  the  one  es- 
sential thing, — the  "truth''  or  inward  re- 
ality of  the  fact.  He  thinks  it  not  only  per- 
missible but  necessary  to  modify  the  fact, 
so  as  to  bring  out  more  fully  or  emphati- 
cally the  idea  at  the  heart  of  it  "Lo,  now 
speakest  thou  plainly,  and  speakest  no 
parable,"  say  the  disciples  to  Jesus  at  the 
Last  Supper.*  The  evangelist  here  ex- 
presses the  thought  which  has  guided  him 
constantly  in  the   writing  of  his    Gospel. 

^  xvi :  29. 

17 


THE  FOURTH   GOSPEL 

He  has  taken  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus  as  a 
great  ''  parable/'  and  seeks  to  make  it  in- 
telligible, in  its  infinite  significance  for  all 
time. 

(2)  In  estimating  the  historical  character 
of  the  Gospel  we  must  further  bear  in  mind 
that  it  is  written  with  a  deliberate  purpose. 
Although  cast  in  the  mould  of  a  biography 
of  Jesus,  it  is  not,  like  the  other  Gospels,  a 
simple  narrative  of  events.  The  evangelist 
himself  declares,  in  the  verse  which  origi- 
nally closed  his  work,  that  he  had  kept  an 
aim  before  him.  "  These  things  are  written 
that  ye  might  believe  that  Jesus  i^the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  God,  and  that  believing  ye  might 
have  life  through  his  name."^  In  other 
words,  we  have  here  a  history  which  is 
meant  to  illustrate  and  support  a  given  re- 
ligious belief.  We  are  prepared  to  find  that 
the  facts  as  recorded  are  all  brought  into  cor- 
respondence with  that  belief.  Consciously 

*  XX :  31. 

18 


SUBORDINATE  AIMS 

or  not,  the  writer  so  adjusts  and  colours 
them  as  to  bear  out  his  own  conception  of 
the  Person  and  work  of  Christ. 

IV.   SUBORDINATE  AIMS 

The  Gospel  is  confessedly  written  with 
an  intention,  and  we  are  justified  in  enquir- 
ing whether  the  declared  religious  intention 
may  not  be  combined  with  some  other.  The 
beginning  of  the  second  century  was  one 
of  the  critical  periods  in  the  history  of  the 
church;  and  it  may  fairly  be  expected  that 
a  work  written  about  that  time  will  have 
a  bearing  on  the  needs  and  problems  which 
were  occupying  the  minds  of  Christian  men. 
When  we  look  below  the  surface  of  the 
fourth  Gospel  we  seem  to  discover  clear 
traces  of  this  interest  in  the  contemporary  life 
of  the  church.  Several  of  the  more  striking 
peculiarities  of  the  Gospel  are  not  capable 
of  explanation  until  we  read  it  not  only  as  a 
historyofjesus,  butas  a^^tract  for  the  times/' 
19 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

called  forth  by  the  practical  requirements 
of  the  second  century. 

(i)  A  number  of  chapters  are  devoted 
almost  entirely  to  controversy,  —  our  Lord 
asserting  his  claims  in  face  of  the  antago- 
nism of  "the  Jews.''  This  substitution  of  the 
nation  generally  for  the  "  scribes  and  Phari- 
sees "  of  the  earlier  Gospels  is  itself  strange ; 
and  our  surprise  is  still  greater  when  we 
examine  into  the  nature  of  the  controversy. 
It  turns,  not  as  in  the  other  records,  on 
matters  of  Jewish  custom  and  morality,  but 
on  doctrinal  questions  which  first  came 
under  discussion  at  a  later  time.  Jesus  meets 
objections  which  the  Jews  bring  forward 
against  his  unity  with  God,  his  preexist- 
ence,  the  character  of  his  Messianic  work, 
the  partaking  of  his  flesh  and  blood,  the 
apparent  failure  of  his  mission.  We  have 
here  to  do  not  with  the  conflict  between 
Jesus  and  his  enemies,  but  with  the  conflict 
between  Christianity  and  Judaism.  The 
20 


SUBORDINATE  AIMS 

objections  answered  are  precisely  those 
which  were  urged  by  the  Jews  against  the 
rival  religion:  they  meet  us  continually, 
under  various  forms,  in  the  controversial 
works  of  the  second  century.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  avoid  the  inference  that  the  evan- 
gelist, writing  at  a  time  when  the  synagogue 
was  in  strong  opposition  to  the  church, 
took  occasion  to  read  back  into  the  past 
the  conflict  of  the  present.  His  Gospel  be- 
came, in  one  of  its  aspects,  a  reply  to  the 
Jewish  antagonists,  whose  arguments  were 
more  dangerous  than  any  others  to  the  pro- 
gress of  the  Christian  mission. 

(2)  Another  remarkable  feature  in  the 
Gospel  is  its  attitude  to  John  the  Baptist. 
John  ceases  to  be  the  preacher  of  righteous- 
ness whom  we  read  of  in  the  Synoptic  nar- 
ratives, and  is  simply  a  witness  to  the  Light. 
He  foretells  the  advent  of  Jesus,  and  is  the 
first  to  recognise  him.  When  once  he  has 
welcomed  and  proclaimed  him,  he  feels 
21 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

that  his  own  vocation  is  ended,  and  with- 
draws from  the  scene.  The  greatness  of 
John  is  generously  acknowledged,  yet  there 
is  an  obvious  anxiety  to  subordinate  him 
to  Jesus,  —  an  anxiety  which  to  our  minds 
seems  superfluous.  It  only  becomes  intel- 
ligible when  we  remember  that  John  was 
the  founder  of  a  sect,  which  continued  in 
being  long  after  his  death,  and  which  ap- 
parently came  into  conflict  with  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  The  evangelist  had  in  his  mind 
not  only  the  historical  John,  but  this  Baptist 
party.  He  sought  to  refute  their  extrava- 
gant claims  on  behalf  of  their  master,  — 
possibly  also  to  win  them  over,  like  John's 
first  disciples,  to  the  allegiance  of  Christ. 

(3)  A  farther  controversial  aim  may  be 
traced  in  the  Gospel.  We  know  that  the  First 
Epistle  of  John  —  a  kindred  writing,  which 
comes  to  us  from  the  same  school,  if  not 
from  the  same  hand  —  is  directed  against 
certain  heretical  teachers.  These  appear  to 
22 


SUBORDINATE  AIMS 

have  been  precursors  of  the  later  Gnostics, 
who  denied  the  reality  of  Christ's  appear- 
ance and  death,  and  sought  to  resolve  his 
message  into  a  vague  philosophical  system. 
It  is  highly  probable  that  the  same  type  of 
heretical  teaching  is  combated  in  the  Gos- 
pel. The  writer  goes  back  to  the  earthly 
life  of  Jesus,  and  follows  it  step  by  step 
through  its  earthly  progress.  He  lays  stress 
on  details  which  serve  to  illustrate  the  Lord's 
humanity.  He  offers  solemn  testimony  to 
the  material  fact  of  the  death  upon  the  Cross.' 
The  whole  Gospel  centres  on  the  thesis  that 
the  Word  was  made  flesh,  —  that  the  divine 
nature  has  imparted  itself  to  men  through 
a  human  life.  But  while  the  evangelist  is 
thus  strongly  opposed  to  Gnosticism,  there 
is  reason  to  believe  that  he  has  himself  been 
touched  by  Gnostic  influences.  He  makes 
frequent  use  of  well-known  Gnostic  watch- 
words ;  he  draws  a  Gnostic  distinction  be- 

1  xix:  35. 

23 


THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL 

tween  the  two  classes  of  men,  —  the  earthly 
and  the  spiritual,  the  children  of  darkness 
and  the  children  of  light  ;  with  all  his  in- 
sistence on  the  reality  of  the  Saviour's  life 
he  never  loses  sight  of  its  ideal  significance. 
This  twofold  attitude  to  the  Gnostic  specu- 
lations is  one  of  the  chief  problems  of  the 
Gospel.  In  order  to  solve  it  fully  we  should 
require  to  know  something  of  the  person- 
ality of  the  writer  and  of  the  particular  cir- 
cumstances in  which  he  wrote. 

(4)  Thus  far  the  Gospel  appears  to  have 
a  bearing  on  specific  controversies,  which 
agitated  the  church  about  the  beginning  of 
the  second  century;  but  we  can  discern  in 
it  yet  another  interest,  subordinate  to  the 
main  religious  one.  Nowhere  in  the  book 
is  there  express  reference  to  the  "  church  "; 
yet  there  is  no  New  Testament  writing 
which  is  more  impregnated  with  the  eccle- 
siastical idea.  Jesus  is  regarded  throughout 
as  the  founder  of  a  community  which  was 
24 


SUBORDINATE  AIMS 

by  and  by  to  overspread  the  world.  The 
disciples  whom  he  calls  around  him  are 
the  nucleus  and  the  eventual  leaders  of  this 
community.  Rules  are  laid  down  for  the 
administration  of  the  church  ordinances  and 
the  direction  of  its  government  and  life. 
The  seventeenth  chapter  more  especially  — 
the  so-called  Intercessory  Prayer  —  can 
only  be  read  aright  when  we  consider  it  as 
a  prayer  for  the  future  church.  Jesus,  on  the 
point  of  his  departure,  looks  forward  to  the 
great  brotherhood  which  would  call  itself  by 
his  name,  and  prays  for  its  unity  and  peace. 
The  apparent  universalism  of  the  Gospel 
must  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  this 
church  idea  which  everywhere  pervades  it. 
There  appears,  at  first  sight,  to  be  no  writ- 
ing in  which  the  largeness  of  Christ's  mes- 
sage is  so  fully  recognised,  and  which  sets 
forth  so  absolutely  the  duty  of  Christian 
love.  But  when  we  look  more  closel}^^,  we 
see  that  the  evangelist  was  thinking  pri- 

25 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

marily  of  the  church,  in  its  opposition  to 
"  the  world."  He  has  done  with  the  exclu- 
siveness  that  would  limit  salvation  to  one 
race  or  class;  but  he  replaces  it  by  another 
exclusiveness.  Jesus  "  lays  down  his  life  for 
his  friends."'  He  prays  "  not  for  the  world, 
but  for  those  whom  thou  hast  given  me."  ^ 
The  love  so  beautifully  typified  in  the 
Lord's  act  of  service  at  the  Supper,  is 
^'  love  for  one  another,''  —  that  is,  mutual 
love  within  the  Christian  community.  The 
real  universalism  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  and  the  parable  of  the  Good  Samar- 
itan gives  place  in  the  fourth  Gospel  to  a 
narrower  message,  in  accordance  with  the 
idea  of  the  church.  There  can  be  little 
question  that  the  evangelist  wrote  con- 
sciously in  the  interest  of  this  idea.  Living 
at  a  time  when  the  unity  of  the  church  was 
in  danger,  and  when  various  abuses  were 
creeping  into  its   life  and  sacraments,  he 

*  XV :  13.  *  xvii :  9. 

26 


SUBORDINATE  AIMS 

sought  to  remind  it  of  its  true  character. 
He  reads  back  into  the  gospel  history  the 
conditions  of  his  own  day,  in  order  to  sub- 
mit them  to  the  Master's  judgment.  Jesus 
himself  becomes  the  counsellor  and  legis- 
lator of  his  church. 

These  subordinate  motives  can  all  be  dis- 
covered in  the  Gospel,  and  need  to  be  taken 
into  account  in  any  estimate  of  its  historical 
value.  Under  the  form  of  a  biography  of 
Jesus  it  deals  with  problems  and  difficulties 
which  did  not  arise  until  after  his  death.  It 
bears  a  constant  reference  not  only  to  the 
events  which  it  narrates,  but  to  the  situation 
of  the  church  in  the  early  part  of  the  second 
century.  These  other  motives,  however,  are 
always  subordinate  in  the  writer's  mind. 
His  paramount  aim  is  the  purely  religious 
one;  "that  ye  may  believe  in  Jesus  as  the 
Son  of  God,  and  that  believing  ye  may  have 
life  through  his  name." 
27 


THE  FOURTH   GOSPEL 

V.   NEW  PRESENTATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

We  may  now  concentrate  our  attention 
on  this  supreme  religious  purpose  which 
the  fourth  evangelist  had  at  heart.  His 
teaching  is  profoundly  spiritual,  and  in  its 
essence  has  little  relation  to  time  and  his- 
torical circumstance.  There  can  be  no  key 
to  its  inmost  secret  except  that  of  Christian 
experience  and  faith.  But  to  understand  the 
forms  in  which  this  permanent  message  is 
expressed,  we  must  think  of  the  time  when 
the  Gospel  was  written  and  try  to  realise 
its  conditions.  The  first  century  had  just 
ended,  and  the  new  religion  was  passing 
through  the  most  critical  years  of  its  history. 
Hitherto  it  had  been  proclaimed  by  Apos- 
tles or  comrades  of  the  Apostles, —  men 
who  were  in  immediate  contact  with  the 
personal  ministry  of  Jesus.  It  had  centred 
its  message  on  the  enthusiastic  hope  of  an 
imminent  return  of  the  Lord  to  judgment. 
28 


NEW  PRESENTATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

While  extending  its  mission  through  the 
cities  of  the  Gentile  world,  it  had  found  its 
chief  support  in  Jews  and  Jewish  proselytes, 
to  whom  the  original  teaching  was  directly 
intelligible.  But  towards  the  turn  of  the 
century,  all  the  conditions  which  had  se- 
cured the  initial  success  of  Christianity  un- 
derwent a  change.  The  high  enthusiasm  of 
the  early  days  had  ebbed  away.  The  last 
links  with  the  Apostolic  Age  were  on  the 
point  of  severing,  and  the  life  of  Jesus  had 
faded  into  a  historical  memory.  The  hope 
of  the  Lord's  coming,  which  had  sustained 
Paul  and  his  fellow  labourers  had  appar- 
ently proved  vain.  Judaism  and  Christian- 
ity had  come  to  open  quarrel;  and  the 
younger  religion  had  to  seek  its  future  in 
the  great  Gentile  world,  to  which  its  beliefs 
and  ideals  and  traditions  were  all  strange. 
It  was  evident  that  if  the  church  was  to  sur- 
vive and  to  maintain  itself  as  a  living  power, 
its  whole  message  had  to  be  re-interpreted. 
29 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Some  expression  must  be  found  for  the  rev- 
elation in  Christ,  which  would  set  it  free 
from  its  mere  local  and  accidental  ele- 
ments, and  give  it  a  meaning  for  Gentiles 
in  the  second  century  as  it  had  had  for  Jews 
in  the  first.  Our  Gospel  was  written  in 
those  years  of  critical  transition.  The  task 
which  the  evangelist  laid  on  himself  was 
that  of  interpreting  to  a  new  time  and  trans- 
lating into  the  terms  of  a  different  culture, 
the  truth  as  it  was  in  Christ. 

This  task  had  already,  in  some  measure, 
been  attempted  by  Paul,  who  had  stood  out- 
side of  the  original  circle  of  disciples.  In  the 
endeavour  to  explain  the  Christian  message 
to  his  own  mind,  and  to  preach  it  effectively 
to  the  Gentile  world,  he  was  obliged  to 
clothe  it  in  new  forms.  His  faith  was  di- 
rected not  to  Jesus  as  he  had  lived  on  earth, 
but  to  the  risen  and  exalted  Christ.  He  con- 
strued in  terms  of  a  theology  the  truth  which 
had  been  given  simply  and  directly,  through 
30 


NEW  PRESENTATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

a  personal  life.  The  fourth  evangelist  takes 
up  the  work  of  Paul,  to  whom  he  is  indebted 
for  all  his  main  conceptions;  but  in  two  im- 
portant respects  he  advances  on  the  Paul- 
ine teaching,  (i)  On  the  one  hand  he  trans- 
fers to  Jesus  in  his  lifetime  the  attributes 
of  the  glorified  Lord.  Paul,  in  his  desire  to 
emphasise  the  eternal  meaning  of  the  Chris- 
tian revelation,  had  refused  to  "  know  Christ 
after  the  flesh."  The  one  object  of  his  faith 
was  the  ever-living  Christ,  who  had  now 
thrown  off  the  form  of  a  servant,  and  had 
declared  himself  as  the  Son  of  God  with 
power.  But  this  Pauline  gospel,  as  later 
experience  had  shown,  was  fraught  with  a 
grave  danger.  It  tended  to  break  up  the 
identity  of  the  Christ  of  faith  with  the  his- 
torical Jesus,  and  to  empty  the  earthly  life 
of  all  value  and  purpose.  In  the  hands  of 
teachers  who  were  less  mastered  than  him- 
self by  the  genuine  Christian  idea,  the  views 
of  Paul  were  already  being  developed  in  a 

31 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Gnostic  direction.  A  doctrine  of  Christ 
was  gaining  ground  which  had  no  relation 
to  any  historical  fact.  The  fourth  evangelist 
seeks  to  reconcile  the  Pauline  account  of 
Christ  with  that  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels. 
He  goes  back  to  Jesus  as  he  had  actually 
lived  among  men,  and  invests  him  with 
the  glory  of  that  exalted  Christ  whom  Paul 
had  beheld  in  vision.  Thus  the  higher  sig- 
nificance of  the  Christian  revelation  is  read 
into  the  history  itself.  Jesus  in  his  human 
intercourse  with  his  disciples  is  no  other 
than  "the  Son  of  God  who  is  in  heaven.'" 
(2)  Again,  the  Christian  theology  is  pre- 
sented in  the  fourth  Gospel  under  Greek 
forms  of  thought.  Paul  was  a  Jew  of  Tarsus, 
one  of  the  centres  of  Greek  philosophical 
culture;  and  a  Hellenic  influence  has  been 
traced  in  not  a  few  of  his  speculations.  But 
the  prevailing  colour  of  his  thought  is  Jew- 
ish.   He   was   trained    in    the   Rabbinical 

1  iii :  33. 
32 


THE  LOGOS 

schools,  and  borrowed  from  them  the  theo- 
logical ideas  under  which  he  explained  the 
new  message.  The  fourth  evangelist  — 
though  almost  certainly  a  Jew  —  had  en- 
tered deeply  into  the  spirit  of  Greek  philo- 
sophy. In  his  endeavour  to  set  forth  the 
inner  meaning  of  the  Christian  revelation, 
he  discards  the  Jewish  forms,  which  were 
unintelligible  to  the  wider  audience  he  has 
in  view.  In  a  far  more  radical  sense  than 
Paul,  he  re-interprets  the  message.  It  is 
translated  out  of  the  language  in  which  it 
was  originally  given  into  another,  which  in 
many  points  was  alien  to  it  altogether. 

VI.  THE  LOGOS 

The  evangelist  found  ready  to  his  hand, 
in  the  general  thought  of  his  time,  an  idea 
on  which  he  was  able  to  base  his  new  in- 
terpretation. Greek  philosophy  was  chiefly 
represented  in  the  first  and  second  centuries 
by  Stoicism;   and  the  central  doctrine  of 

33 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Stoicism  was  that  of  the  Logos,  or  imma- 
nent Reason  of  the  world.  An  attempt  had 
already  been  made  by  Philo,  a  Jewish 
thinker  of  Alexandria,  to  reconcile  Greek 
philosophy  with  the  Old  Testament  on  the 
ground  of  this  Stoic  doctrine.  The  Greek 
term  "  Logos"  signifies  "  word''  as  well  as 
"reason";  and  Philo  had  availed  himself 
of  this  double  meaning.  Into  the  Old  Testa- 
ment allusions  to  the  creative  and  revealing 
word  of  God  he  had  read  the  philosophical 
conception  of  the  Logos;  and  had  thus 
evolved  that  theory  that  within  the  being  of 
God  there  was  a  secondary  divine  principle, 
the  Word  or  Logos,  which  was  His  agent 
in  the  creation  and  government  of  the  world. 
God  Himself  was  solitary  and  transcendent, 
of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold  iniquity;  but 
He  had  entered  into  relation  with  the  world 
of  time  through  that  intermediate  Power, 
which  was  one  with  Him  and  yet  distinct. 
Christian  teachers  from  an  early  time  had 
34 


THE  LOGOS 

been  drawn  to  this  Alexandrian  doctrine, 
more  especially  as  Philo  himself  had  attrib- 
uted a  kind  of  personality  to  the  Logos. 
It  was  recognised,  more  and  more  clearly, 
that  the  Jewish  idea  of  the  Messiah  did  not 
fully  represent  the  significance  of  Jesus.  He 
was  something  more  than  a  national  deliv- 
erer. He  had  brought  men  into  fellowship 
with  God,  in  a  manner  that  could  not  be 
explained  by  the  current  Messianic  the- 
ology. Paul,  though  he  still  speaks  of  Jesus 
as  the  Messiah,  the  "  Man  from  heaven " 
of  Rabbinic  speculation,  is  evidently  reach- 
ing out  towards  some  higher  conception. 
In  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  the  Logos 
theory  of  the  Person  of  Christ  is  plainly 
suggested;  and  it  meets  us  again,  even  more 
definitely,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
But  it  was  reserved  for  the  fourth  evan- 
gelist to  complete  and  to  work  out  in  all  its 
bearings,  the  identification  of  Jesus  with 
the  Logos.  He  declares  explicitly  at  the 
35 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

very  outset  of  his  Gospel,  that  the  Word 
which  had  existed  from  all  eternity  with 
God,  sharing  with  Him  in  the  divine  nature, 
had  become  incarnate  in  Jesus  Christ. 

It  is  true  that  after  the  prologue  with 
which  the  Gospel  opens  we  have  no  further 
direct  reference  to  the  Word.  Jesus  hence- 
forth appears  as  the  "  Son  "  or  the  "  Son  of 
God";  and  from  this  it  has  been  argued 
that  the  Logos  conception  was  only  an  af- 
terthought which  has  no  intrinsic  relation 
to  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel  as  a  whole. 
But  a  closer  analysis  seems  to  remove  all 
doubt  that  the  idea  of  the  prologue  is  car- 
ried out  consistently  through  the  entire 
book.  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God  in  the  sense 
that  he  is  a  divine  Being,  eternally  one  with 
God.  While  appearing  in  the  form  of  man, 
he  is  endued  with  divine  power  and  know- 
ledge and  majesty.  His  sojourn  on  earth  is 
only  a  brief  interval  in  the  heavenly  life 
which  has  been  his  from  the  beginning  and 

36 


THE  LOGOS 

to  which  he  presently  returns.  At  the  same 
time  his  distinction  from  God  is  brought 
into  prominence,  as  in  the  philosophical 
doctrine.  Though  one  with  God  he  is  subor- 
dinate to  Him.  He  does  nothing  of  him- 
self, but  is  dependent  in  all  things  on  the 
Father.'  All  that  he  possesses  has  been 
"given"  him  by  the  Father,  who  is  greater 
than  he.^  Thus  in  his  picture  of  the  actual 
life  of  Jesus  the  evangelist  keeps  before 
him  the  philosophical  idea,  and  tries  to  give 
effect  to  it,  on  both  its  sides. 

A  historical  life  cannot,  by  the  nature  of 
things,  be  interpreted  by  means  of  an  ab- 
stract philosophical  idea.  We  must  needs 
admit  that  in  his  endeavour  to  represent 
Jesus  as  at  once  Man  and  incarnate  Logos, 
the  evangelist  falls  into  many  inconsisten- 
cies. Not  only  so,  but  he  divests  the  his- 
torical life  of  much  of  its  meaning  and  its 
true  grandeur,  in  order  to  bring  it  into  con- 

^  V :  19.  ^  xiv  :  28. 

37 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

formity  with  the  Logos  idea.  We  miss  from 
his  narrative  some  of  the  most  striking  epi- 
sodes of  the  Synoptic  story,  —  for  example, 
the  Baptism,  the  Temptation,  the  Agony, 
the  Cry  from  the  Cross.  These  could  not 
be  reconciled  with  the  theory  of  the  Logos, 
and  had  therefore  to  be  omitted.  No  allu- 
sion is  made  to  the  intercourse  of  Jesus 
with  publicans  and  sinners,  which  seemed 
incompatible  with  his  dignity  as  the  incar- 
nate Son  of  God.  The  miracles  are  re- 
garded simply  as  "  signs  "  of  his  supernat- 
ural power  and  origin;  and  the  motive 
of  human  compassion,  so  prominent  in 
the  other  Gospels,  falls  out  of  sight.  The 
prayers  of  Jesus  cease  to  be  true  appeals 
for  God's  help  and  guidance.  He  is  himself 
one  with  the  Father,  and  knows  beforehand 
that  his  prayer  is  sure  of  fulfilment."  As 
many  things  are  omitted,  so  there  are  cer- 
tain features  added  which  impair  the  hu- 


38 


THE  LOGOS 

man  reality  of  the  portrait.  Jesus  knows 
himself  from  the  beginning  to  be  the  Son  of 
God,  and  is  so  recognised  by  his  disciples. 
His  life  unfolds  itself  according  to  a  pre- 
arranged plan,  of  which  no  part  is  hidden 
from  him.  He  preserves  an  attitude  of  aloof- 
ness towards  those  around  him,  who  are  of 
different  nature  from  himself.  Though  he 
has  submitted  for  a  time  to  the  trammels  of 
earthly  circumstance,  he  is  never  merely 
passive,  but  orders  his  life  down  to  its  most 
casual  details,  and  goes  to  the  Cross  by  his 
own  free  choice.  It  is  not  the  life  of  Jesus 
which  is  thus  set  before  us,  but  the  history 
of  the  Logos,  who  acts  by  the  laws  of  his 
divine  nature,  though  he  has  taken  on 
himself  the  form  of  man. 

We  misunderstand  the  Gospel,  however, 
if  we  regard  it  merely  as  the  presentation, 
in  the  guise  of  history,  of  an  abstract  theo- 
logical idea.  The  idea,  when  all  is  said,  is 
secondary  and  external.  It  is  only  the  in- 

39 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

tellectual  form  whereby  the  evangelist  tries 
to  realise  and  explain  the  impression  made 
on  him  by  Jesus.  As  he  reflected  on  that 
divine  life,  as  he  discerned  what  it  had  been 
to  him  in  the  experience  of  faith,  he  felt 
that  God  Himself  had  come  near  to  men  in 
Jesus  Christ.  All  previous  conceptions  of 
the  Saviour's  nature  and  mission  seemed 
wholly  inadequate,  and  he  had  resort  to  the 
very  highest  category  which  the  thought  of 
the  time  afforded  him.  Jesus  was  no  other 
than  the  eternal  Word,  —  the  representa- 
tive and  express  image  of  God.  Like  Paul 
before  him  the  evangelist  had  been  mas- 
tered, in  the  first  instance,  by  the  actual  life 
of  Jesus ;  and  his  theology,  like  Paul's,  has 
a  personal  love  and  faith  behind  it.  The 
Logos  doctrine  is  never  so  conspicuous 
but  we  can  trace  in  the  writer's  mind  this 
thought  of  Jesus;  and  ever  and  again  the 
remembrance  of  the  living  Person  breaks 
altogether  through  the  theological  concep- 
40 


THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

tion.  Most  of  all  in  the  Supper  discourses 
we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  Jesus  as 
he  lived.  He  is  no  longer  the  transcendent 
Logos,  aloof  from  the  world  while  travel- 
ling through  it,  but  the  Friend  and  Master 
who  loves  his  own  unto  the  end.  The  Gos- 
pel owes  its  permanent  place  in  the  hearts 
of  Christian  men  to  this  vision  of  Jesus,  in 
his  human  personality,  which  lies  always  in 
the  background.  We  feel,  as  we  read,  that 
the  abstract  theory  is  only  a  means  to  an 
end;  and  our  ultimate  impression  is  one  of 
simple  love  and  adoration  in  the  presence 
of  a  personal  life. 

VII.  THE   DEATH   OF   CHRIST 

The  theology  of  the  fourth  Gospel  is 
governed  throughout  by  the  idea  assumed 
in  the  prologue,  that  the  eternal  Word  be- 
came flesh.  It  follows  that  the  redemptive 
work  of  Christ  was  achieved  through  his 
Incarnation.    The  emphasis  is  laid  not  on 

41 


THE  FOURTH   GOSPEL 

the  death,  as  in  Paulinism,  but  on  the  life; 
and  Jesus  can  say  at  the  Last  Supper,  when 
the  Cross  is  still  in  front  of  them,  "  I  have 
finished  the  work  which  thou  gavest  me  to 
do."  '  The  Crucifixion  was  indeed  the  out- 
standing fact  of  Christian  history,  and  the 
fourth  evangelist,  like  Paul  and  the  Syn- 
optists,  is  careful  to  set  it  in  its  due  place. 
From  the  beginning,  when  John  the  Bap- 
tist points  his  disciples  to  "the  Lamb  of 
God,"  the  story  looks  forward  to  the  Cross. 
Jesus  is  ever  mindful  of  his  "hour,"  and 
the  thought  of  his  approaching  departure 
gives  pathos  and  meaning  to  many  a  solemn 
utterance  as  well  as  to  the  great  farewell 
discourses  at  the  Supper.  Nevertheless,  it 
is  apparent  that  the  writer  felt  a  certain  dif- 
ficulty in  regard  to  the  death.  He  could 
not  omit  it,  as  he  had  done  other  incidents, 
or  assign  it  any  place  except  a  central  one; 
yet  it  was  irreconcilable  with  his  theory 


42 


THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

of  Christ  as  the  Logos,  who  could  not  be 
touched  by  earthly  change  or  accident. 
The  Gnostic  thinkers  were  conscious  of  the 
same  difficulty  involved  in  the  death  of 
Christ,  and  sought  to  overcome  it  by  the 
strange  theory  that  he  did  not  really  die. 
They  maintained  either  that  Simon  of  Cy- 
rene  who  bore  his  Cross  was  crucified  in- 
stead of  him,  or  that  his  seeming  death 
was  of  the  nature  of  an  illusion.  The  evan- 
gelist, with  those  false  teachers  in  his  view, 
is  anxious  to  remove  all  doubt  concerning 
the  historical  fact.  He  declares  that  "Jesus 
went  forth,  bearing  the  cross  for  himself,"  ' 
and  establishes  the  reality  of  the  death  by 
the  direct  testimony  of  an  eye-witness.^ 
Yet  in  various  ways  he  endeavours  to  miti- 
gate, in  the  interest  of  his  theory,  the  su- 
preme difficulty  of  the  Cross.  He  insists, 
as  we  have  seen,  on  the  self-determination 
of  Jesus,  whose  life  was  not  taken  from 

^  XIX :  17.  *  xix:  35. 

43 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

him,  but  laid  down  of  his  own  free  will. 
He  is  at  pains  to  show  that  the  death  was 
a  necessary  episode  in  the  fulfilment  of  a 
divine  plan.  In  recounting  the  actual  story 
of  the  Passion  he  brings  into  strong  relief 
the  majesty  and  authority  of  Jesus,  so  that 
instead  of  a  Sufferer  we  see  a  King,  whose 
apparent  humiliation  was  his  "  lifting  up  " 
to  the  throne  of  the  world. 

The  evangelist,  then,  does  not  regard  the 
death  from  the  point  of  view  of  Paul,  as  the 
great  redemptive  act  in  which  the  life  of 
Christ  found  its  issue  and  explanation.  He 
thinks  of  it  rather  as  something  which  was 
additional  to  the  life,  and  which  itself  had 
to  be  explained.  Sometimes  he  describes  it 
as  the  sovereign  instance  of  faithfulness  to 
duty,"  or  as  the  crowning  example  of  self- 
sacrificing  love.^  Elsewhere  he  brings  it  into 
relation  to  his  favourite  idea  of  Christian 
unity.    Around  the   Cross,  as  a  common 

1  x:   II.  '  xv:   13. 

44 


THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

standard,  all  the  scattered  children  of  God 
are  to  be  gathered  into  one.'  But  there  is 
one  interpretation  of  the  death  of  Christ 
which  meets  us  continually  in  the  Gospel 
and  which  serves  to  connect  it,  in  spite  of 
apparent  difficulties,  with  the  doctrine  of 
the  Logos.  Christ  was  the  Word  made 
flesh;  and  by  the  assumption  of  an  earthly 
nature  he  had  necessarily  placed  certain 
limits  on  his  activity.  He  had  revealed 
himself  under  conditions  of  space  and  time, 
and  only  a  chosen  few  could  know  him, 
and  their  knowledge  at  the  best  was  partial 
and  imperfect.  By  his  death,  all  the  limi- 
tations were  broken  down.  He  emerged 
from  the  narrow  earthly  life  into  a  univer- 
sal life,  and  could  henceforth  hold  com- 
munion with  his  people  everywhere,  as  he 
had  once  done  with  his  immediate  disci- 
ples. He  was  restored  to  the  fulness  of  his 
preexistent   being,  while    he   carried  into 

1  xi:  52. 

45 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

it  those  other  attributes  he  had  worn  as 
Man.  This  is  the  characteristic  Johannine 
doctrine  of  the  death  of  Christ.  The  re- 
deeming work  was  fully  accomplished  in 
the  life;  but  through  the  death  it  became  a 
lasting  and  universal  possession  for  men. 
The  corn  of  wheat  was  cast  into  the  ground 
to  die,  that  it  might  bring  forth  much 
fruit' 

VIII.  LIGHT  AND   LIFE 

What,  then,  was  that  work  of  Christ 
which  he  finished  in  his  earthly  life  and 
which  was  set  free  from  every  limitation 
by  his  death  ?  The  Gospel  offers  a  twofold 
account  of  its  nature  and  purpose,  (i)  In 
the  first  place,  through  Christ  we  have  the 
full  and  ultimate  revelation  of  God.  It  be- 
longs to  the  Hellenic  cast  of  the  evangelist's 
thinking  that  a  peculiar  value  is  attached  to 
the  idea  of  revelation.  To  the  Greek  mind 

*  xii  :  24. 

46 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE 

the  highest  good  was  identified  with  per- 
fect knowledge;  and  for  more  than  five 
centuries  the  great  philosophers  had  been 
striving  after  that  knowledge.  It  was  as- 
sumed that  the  "  wise  man ''  —  the  man  who 
rightly  apprehended  the  nature  of  God  — 
would  raise  himself  above  earthly  circum- 
stance, and  become,  in  some  measure,  like 
God.  The  evangelist,  imbued  with  this 
Greek  idea,  declares  that  God  has  now 
granted  to  men  the  absolute  revelation  of 
Himself.  From  the  beginning  He  has  been 
found  of  those  who  sought  Him.  In  sages, 
prophets,  law-givers.  His  Word  has  been 
dimly  reflected,  and  men  have  been  led  by 
them  to  some  partial  knowledge  of  Him- 
self. But  now  at  last  the  revealing  Word 
has  appeared  in  very  Person.  The  Light 
which  in  broken  rays  had  been  present  to 
men  from  the  beginning,  had  come  into  the 
world.  It  was  the  supreme  service  of  the 
fourth  evangelist  to  Christian  thought  that 

47 


THE  FOURTH   GOSPEL 

he  discerned  the  true  revelation  of  God  in 
the  Hving  Person  of  Christ.  The  objection 
has  often  been  urged  against  the  Gospel 
that  it  contains  little  of  definite  teaching. 
Its  elaborate  discourses  are  almost  wholly 
occupied  with  sayings  about  the  speaker 
himself.  With  all  their  claim  to  convey  a 
fuller  revelation,  they  have  far  less  to  tell 
us  of  the  Heavenly  Father,  in  His  love  and 
providence  and  will  towards  men,  than  the 
simple  Synoptic  parables.  But  it  may  be 
answered  that  by  concentrating  his  thought 
upon  the  Person,  almost  to  the  exclusion 
of  all  else,  the  evangelist  has  truly  appre- 
hended, and  expressed  with  a  matchless 
clearness  and  power,  the  truth  that  un- 
derlies even  the  Synoptic  teaching.  Jesus 
himself  was  the  revelation.  He  made  the 
Father  known  to  us,  not  so  much  by  the 
words  he  spoke  as  by  his  life,  by  his 
whole  personality,  ^^full  of  grace  and 
truth.''  Our  knowledge  of  God  is  dependent 

48 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE 

henceforth  on  an  ever-growing  vision  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  may  be  granted  that  in  his 
presentation  of  this  great  truth  the  evangel- 
ist is  largely  influenced  by  philosophical 
ideas  that  obscure  much  of  its  meaning. 
He  appears  to  suggest  that  Jesus  revealed 
the  Father  because  He  was  Himself  of  the 
same  essence,  and  made  palpable  to  us  the 
absolute  divine  life.  A  one-sided  emphasis 
is  laid  on  "  knowledge/'  as  if  God  were  to  be 
apprehended  through  Christ  by  some  intel- 
lectual process.  Yet  beneath  these  wrap- 
pings of  metaphysic,  inseparable  from  the 
Logos  theory,  we  can  discover  the  simple 
religious  idea  that  Jesus  revealed  God  by 
the  divine  character  of  his  human  life.  The 
knowledge  by  which  we  lay  hold  of  him 
is  something  more  than  intellectual  know- 
ledge. It  is  bound  up  with  obedience  to  his 
will,  and  inward  fellowship  with  him. 

(2)  The  work  of  Christ,  however,  did 
not   consist  wholly  in   revelation.    As    he 

49 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

was  the  Light,  he  was  also  the  Life,  —  im- 
parting to  men  not  only  the  knowledge  of 
God,  but  the  divine  nature.  In  this  concep- 
tion of  Christ  as  the  Life-giver  we  find  the 
central  motive  of  the  Gospel.  It  was  written, 
as  the  evangelist  himself  tells  us,  that  be- 
lieving in  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God  we  might 
have  life. 

"  Life ''  is  the  comprehensive  word  em- 
ployed in  the  Old  Testament  to  denote  the 
sovereign  good.  Joy,  prosperity,  peace, 
wisdom,  righteousness,  are  all  summed  up 
in  the  idea  of  life,  and  God  Himself  is  pre- 
eminently the  "  Living  One.''  In  later  Jew- 
ish thought,  life  was  associated  in  a  special 
manner  with  the  coming  age,  when  all 
things  were  to  reach  their  consummation. 
The  blessings  which  God  would  bestow 
upon  His  people  in  the  great  future  were 
^all  included  in  the  one  possession  of  "  eternal 
life."  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  word  meets 
us  frequently  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  The 
SO 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE 

message  of  Jesus  is  concerned  with  the 
coming  age,  or  kingdom  of  God;  but  the 
kingdom  itself  is  identified  with  its  chief 
blessing.  Jesus  can  speak,  almost  in  the 
same  sentence,  of  "entering  into  the  king- 
dom "and  of  "inheriting  eternal  life."  The 
fourth  evangelist  takes  advantage  of  this 
equivalence  of  the  two  terms,  and  discards 
the  idea  of  the  kingdom  altogether.  It  was 
related  to  hopes  and  beliefs  that  were  spe- 
cifically Jewish,  and  he  replaces  it  by  the 
more  general  conception  of  life.  At  the 
same  time  he  introduces  an  all-important 
change  into  this  conception.  Life  in  the 
Synoptic  teaching  belonged  to  the  inherit- 
ance of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  was  re- 
garded as  still  in  the  future.  It  was  described 
as  "  eternal  life,"  since  it  was  part  of  that 
divine,  eternal  order  which  was  presently 
to  be  inaugurated.  But  the  epithet "  eternal," 
as  used  in  the  fourth  Gospel,  applies  simply 
to  the  quality  of  the  life.  The  natural  life  is 

51 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

something  defective  and  unreal,  little  better 
than  a  state  of  death;  and  over  against  it 
there  is  the  true  life,  offered  to  us  by  Christ. 
It  is  not  a  blessing  of  the  remote  future,  but 
an  actual  and  present  possession.  "  He  that 
believeth  in  the  Son  hath  life."'  "  He  that 
believeth  in  me  is  passed  "  (already  by  that 
very  act)  "  from  death  into  life."  ^ 

The  evangelist  nowhere  declares  in  so 
many  words,  what  he  understands  by  life. 
His  apparent  definition ^  has  reference  rather 
to  the  indispensable  means  whereby  the 
true  life  is  to  be  attained.  In  the  light  of 
various  passages,  however,  his  underlying 
thought  becomes  evident.  Life  is  primarily 
the  absolute  divine  life.  God  is  Spirit,  and 
possesses  an  eternal,  self-originated  life,  of 
a  different  nature  from  that  of  men.  This 
higher  life  is  not  conceived,  at  least  in  the 
first  instance,  under  ethical  categories.  God 
is  the  Living  One,  not  in  virtue  of  His  love 

^  iii :  36.  ^  V  •.  24.  ^  xvii :  3. 

52 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE 

and  righteousness  and  holiness,  but  because 
there  resides  in  Him  a  purer  essence,  anal- 
ogous to  the  life  principle  in  man,  yet  dif- 
ferent in  kind.  The  Logos,  as  one  with  God, 
participates  in  that  divine  attribute  of  life. 
"  As  the  Father  hath  life  in  himself  so  he 
hath  given  the  Son  to  have  life  in  himself." ' 
The  purpose  of  Christ's  coming,  then,  was 
to  communicate  to  men  that  life  which,  as 
the  eternal  Word,  he  shared  with  the 
Father.  Man  was  by  nature  a  creature  of 
flesh,  excluded,  by  the  very  conditions  of 
his  being,  from  the  higher  life.  But  through 
the  incarnation  of  His  Son,  God  had  now 
allied  Himself  with  the  human  race.  What 
was  formerly  an  impassable  gulf,  not  to  be 
crossed  by  any  effort  of  man,  had  been 
bridged  over.  The  higher  nature  had  taken 
possession  of  the  lower,  and  all  who  would 
had  access  to  it  and  could  make  it  their  own. 
This,  according  to  the   fourth  evangelist, 

*  V :  26. 

53 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

was  the  meaning  and  end  of  the  Lord's 
sojourn  in  the  flesh.  "  In  him  was  life," 
and  we  also  can  have  life  through  his  name. 
Two  things  need  to  be  observed  and  em- 
phasised in  connection  with  this  primary 
Johannine  doctrine,  (i)  The  life,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  not  conceived  in  a  purely 
ethical  or  religious  sense.  It  is  regarded 
from  a  metaphysical  point  of  view  as  the 
absolute  life  which  constitutes  the  being 
of  God;  and  as  such  it  is  opposed  to  the 
mere  earthly  life  which  we  inherit  as  men. 
The  work  of  Christ  consists,  therefore,  not 
so  much  in  the  renewal  of  our  sinful  will  as 
in  the  actual  transformation  of  our  nature. 
He  communicates  the  divine  life  as  a  kind 
of  higher  essence,  by  the  reception  of  which 
man's  being  is  wrought  into  affinity  with 
God's.  This  mysterious  change  is  symbol- 
ised by  the  miracle  at  Cana,  —  the  ^^begin- 
ning of  miracles,"  which  was  typical  of  all  the 
others.  As  Jesus  changed  water  into  wine, 
54 


LIGHT  AND  LIFE 

so  he  came  to  transmute  our  earthly  nature 
into  something  richer  and  better.  It  is  in- 
dicated, likewise,  in  the  so-called  parable 
of  the  Vine.  In  more  than  a  figurative  sense 
Jesus  describes  himself  as  the  true  Vine,  — 
the  living  stem  whereby  life  is  transmitted 
to  all  the  branches.  A  conception  of  life 
which  can  only  be  defined  as  semi-physical 
is  involved  in  the  whole  Johannine  doctrine ; 
and  in  so  far  it  falls  short  of  the  highest  re- 
ligious value.  A  magical  element  is  intro- 
duced into  Christianity  which  we  cannot 
but  recognise  as  alien  to  the  real  spirit  of 
our  Lord's  teaching.  None  the  less,  we 
must  here  again  distinguish  between  the 
truth  itself  and  the  form  in  which  it  is  em- 
bodied. The  evangelist  is  conscious  that  in 
Jesus  Christ  a  new,  transforming  power 
has  entered  into  the  world.  He  has  seen 
a  change  effected  in  the  lives  of  men  so 
profound  and  mysterious  that  it  seems  no- 
thing less  than  a  change  of  nature;  and  he 

55 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

has  himself  experienced  this  inward  re- 
newal. To  the  moral  miracle  accomplished 
by  Jesus  he  applies  the  categories  suggested 
to  him  by  his  philosophical  doctrine.  Jesus 
was  the  Word,  in  whom  the  being  of  God 
became  incarnate.  The  possessor  of  the 
divine  life  has  imparted  it  to  his  people, 
changing  their  mortal  nature  into  the  sub- 
stance of  his  own. 

(2)  Life  is  inseparable  from  a  living 
person;  and  we  can  only  receive  the  gift 
of  Christ  by  union  with  himself.  The  life 
is  in  him;  not  in  his  teaching,  or  in  any 
work  performed  by  him,  but  in  his  very 
self.  He  can  say,  "  I  am  the  Life."  The 
idea  thus  conveyed  brings  us  directly  to 
the  heart  of  the  Johannine  message.  Our 
Lord's  purpose,  as  conceived  by  this  evan- 
gelist, was  nothing  less  than  to  impart  his 
own  personal  life  to  his  disciples.  "I  am 
the  living  bread  which  came  down  from 
heaven.''  "The  bread  that  I  will   give  is 

56 


MAN'S  RELATION  TO  THE  LIFE-GIVER 

my  flesh,  which  I  will  give  for  the  life  of 
the  world.'' '  Here,  also,  the  thought  is  no 
doubt  obscured  by  conceptions  that  to  our 
minds  may  appear  crude  and  half-material. 
The  life  is  viewed  as  an  ethereal  essence, 
resident  in  the  incarnate  Word;  and  is  only 
to  be  received  by  some  mystical  absorption 
into  ourselves  of  Christ's  actual  body.  Yet 
the  truth  suggested  is  the  vital  truth  of 
Christianity,  and  the  fourth  Gospel,  more 
than  any  other  writing,  has  established  its 
place  in  the  Christian  thought  of  all  time. 
Our  Lord's  great  gift  to  humanity  was 
himself,  and  to  receive  the  gift  he  offers 
we  must  apprehend  him  in  his  living 
Person.  We  must  fill  ourselves  with  his 
mind  and  will,  and  become  incorporate 
with  him  in  the  whole  spirit  of  our  lives. 

IX.   MAN'S   RELATION  TO  THE  LIFE-GIVER 

The  higher   life   is   imparted  as  an  im- 
mediate gift  of  God  through  Christ  j  but 

1  vi:5i. 

57 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

certain  conditions  are  required  of  men  be- 
fore they  can  receive  the  gift.  To  set  before 
us  these  conditions  is  the  practical  religious 
aim  of  the  fourth  Gospel.  It  might  appear, 
at  first  sight,  as  if  the  evangelist  simply 
took  up  the  message  of  Paul.  As  Paul  in- 
sists on  faith  as  the  one  thing  needful,  so 
the  later  teacher  makes  the  whole  process 
of  salvation  centre  on  the  act  of  believing 
on  Christ.  We  find,  however,  on  compar- 
ing the  two  ideas  more  carefully,  that  the 
"belief"  so  persistently  demanded  in  the 
fourth  Gospel  is  something  different  from 
the  Pauline  "faith,'' — something  much  nar- 
rower and  more  definite.  Its  nature  is  in- 
dicated by  the  conjunction  with  "know- 
ledge "  in  which  it  is  so  often  placed.  Where 
Paul  contemplated  an  energy  of  the  whole 
man,  an  entire  surrender  of  heart  and  will, 
the  evangelist  thinks,  in  the  first  instance, 
of  an  act  of  intellectual  assent.  To  "be- 
lieve" is  to  accept  the  given  doctrines  of 

58 


MAN'S  RELATION  TO  THE  LIFE-GIVER 

Christianity,    especially    the    fundamental 
doctrine  that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God. 

But  while  belief  in  itself  has  thus  a  re- 
stricted meaning,  it  is  combined  with  other 
elements  which  give  it  something  of  the 
larger  significance  of  Faith.  We  are  re- 
minded, on  the  one  hand,  that  the  intel- 
lectual act  is  morally  conditioned.  Before 
we  can  know  Christ  and  recognise  him  in 
his  true  character  as  Son  of  God,  we  re- 
quire to  enter  into  full  sympathy  with 
him;  and  this  sympathy  is  wrought  in  us 
by  a  life  of  obedience  and  loyal  disciple- 
ship.  "If  any  man  will  to  do  His  will,  he 
shall  know  of  the  doctrine.''  '  The  promi- 
nence thus  given  to  the  ethical  demand  of 
Christianity  is  a  marked  feature  in  the  Gos- 
pel,—  all  the  more  striking  because  of  its 
pervading  speculative  character.  Warned, 
perhaps,  by  the  current  errors  of  Gnosti- 
cism, the  evangelist  feels  the  danger  of  re- 

»  vii:  17. 

59 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

solving  the  message  of  Christ  into  a  mere 
theology.  He  holds  that  the  true  know- 
ledge runs  back  in  the  end  to  practical 
obedience. 

On  the  other  hand,  while  belief  is  repre- 
sented as  nothing  in  its  outward  form  but 
an  act  of  bare  confession,  an  emphasis  is 
laid  on  the  mystery  involved  in  it.  Through 
belief  a  man  is  brought  into  life-giving  fel- 
lowship with  the  Son  of  God;  and  an  act 
so  momentous  in  its  consequences  must  be 
the  outcome  of  some  profound  and  divine 
impulse.  "  No  man  can  come  to  me  unless 
the  Father  draw  him."  '  The  will  of  God 
Himself  must  cooperate  with  the  human 
will,  before  there  can  be  a  true  belief  in 
Christ.  This  idea  of  a  divine  activity  re- 
vealing itself  in  the  Christian  confession,  is 
presented  most  fully  and  impressively  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  New  Birth.  The  doc- 
trine is  peculiar  to  the  fourth  Gospel,  and 

1  vi :  44. 

60 


MAN'S  RELATION  TO  THE  LIFE-GIVER 

combines  in  itself  various  elements  derived 
from  Pauline  theology  and  from  early  spec- 
ulations on  the  mystical  import  of  the  bap- 
tismal rite.  But  it  is  ultimately  derived 
from  the  familiar  sayings  in  which  our 
Lord  declares  that  men  must  become  like 
little  children  before  they  can  enter  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  The  evangelist  height- 
ens the  original  image,  and  in  so  doing 
throws  a  new  suggestion  into  it.  He  speaks 
not  merely  of  a  return  to  childhood,  but 
of  a  renewal  of  birth.  The  acceptance  of 
Christianity  is  nothing  less  than  another 
beginning  of  life;  and  this  second  begin- 
ning, like  the  first,  is  mysterious,  and  not 
dependent  on  our  own  will.  We  are  born 
into  our  faith  in  Christ  by  the  agency  of 
God's  spirit,  which  moves  invisibly  like 
the  wind.  Whence  it  comes,  or  how  it 
works  in  us,  we  cannot  tell;  yet  its  influ- 
ence, so  real  though  so  inscrutable,  is  the 
beginning  of  the  new  life. 
6i 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

By  the  act  of  belief,  therefore,  —  which  it- 
self is  preceded  by  a  whole  religious  process, 
—  we  enter  into  such  a  relation  to  Christ 
that  his  gift  becomes  possible.  But  the  be- 
lief is  only  the  starting-point  of  another 
process,  by  which  the  work  of  Christ  attains 
to  its  final  outcome  in  eternal  life.  To  un- 
derstand this  part  of  the  evangelist's  teach- 
ing we  need  to  bear  in  mind  his  ruling  con- 
ception, that  the  life  bestowed  by  Christ  is 
identical  with  Christ  himself.  How  can 
we  so  apprehend  him  that  he  may  commu- 
nicate to  us  his  own  personal  life  ?  This  is 
the  crucial  question  of  the  Gospel,  and  an 
answer  is  sought  to  it  along  various  lines 
of  thought,  (i)  A  peculiar  importance  is 
attached,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  "  words  '' 
of  Christ,  which  are  "  spirit  and  life  "  to 
those  who  truly  receive  them.  The  words 
are  regarded  not  merely  as  the  vehicle  of  a 
certain  message,  but  as  a  living  and  per- 
sonal influence.  To  the  ancient  mode  of 
62 


MAN'S  RELATION  TO  THE  LIFE-GIVER 

thinking,  a  man's  word  was  part  of  himself. 
The  word  of  God,  more  especially,  is  con- 
ceived in  the  Old  Testament  as  the  outflow 
of  the  divine  Personality,  carrying  with  it 
a  quickening  and  creative  power.  So  the 
words  uttered  by  Jesus  were  a  sort  of  efflu- 
ence from  himself.  Through  them  he  makes 
his  abode  in  the  hearts  of  his  people,  and 
communicates  his  own  life.  (2)  Again,  a 
place  is  given  in  the  Gospel  to  the  mystical 
ideas  which  had  already  begun  to  grow  up 
around  the  Lord's  Supper,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Greek  and  Oriental  theosophy.  In 
the  long  discourse  of  Jesus  after  the  feed- 
ing of  the  five  thousand '  we  have  a  whole 
series  of  sayings  which  can  only  be  ex- 
plained in  the  light  of  eucharistic  doctrine. 
The  evangelist's  attitude  to  this  doctrine 
seems  to  be  a  twofold  one.  He  combats 
the  superstitious  belief  that  the  Supper 
was  valid  in  itself,  apart  from  the  discern- 

'  Ch.  vi. 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

ment  of  its  spiritual  meaning.  It  can  avail 
us  nothing  unless  we  can  grasp  the  reality 
through  the  symbols  and  yield  ourselves  to 
Christ  in  the  fellowship  of  faith.  But  at  the 
same  time  a  more  than  symbolical  value  is 
attributed  to  the  sacred  elements.  If  they 
are  received  with  the  true  spirit  they  repre- 
sent, in  some  real  sense,  the  Person  of 
Christ.  Only  as  we  partake  of  his  flesh  and 
blood  can  we  receive  into  ourselves  the 
divine  life;  and  by  the  institution  of  the 
Supper  the  great  miracle  is  accomplished. 
Christ  gives  himself  to  us  as  the  bread  of 
life.  In  this  sacramental  train  of  thought, 
more  distinctly  than  elsewhere,  we  can  de- 
tect the  semi-physical  idea  that  is  inter- 
woven with  the  purely  spiritual  teaching  of 
the  Gospel.  Life  is  a  divine  essence,  inher- 
ent in  the  Word  made  flesh;  and  as  such  it 
must  be  imparted  magically,  by  a  special 
miracle.  (3)  Once  more,  —  and  here  we 
touch  the  centre  of  the  Johannine  message, 

64 


MAN'S  RELATION  TO  THE  LIFE-GIVER 

—  life  becomes  ours  through  an  inward 
abiding  union  with  Christ,  the  Life-giver. 
Paul  had  already  spoken  of  a  fellowship 
with  Christ  so  entire  and  intimate  that  the 
believer  became  one  with  his  Lord.  "  I 
live,  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  who  liveth  in  me." 
The  evangelist  takes  up  this  Pauline  con- 
ception, and  develops  it,  on  the  ground  of 
his  own  spiritual  experience,  to  yet  fuller 
and  deeper  issues.  Life  as  it  manifests  itself 
in  the  disciples  is  the  life  of  Christ,  apart 
from  whom  they  can  do  nothing.  He  makes 
his  abode  with  them  and  unites  them  to 
himself,  as  the  branches  have  their  life  in 
the  vine.  The  question  of  how  this  union  is 
effected  is  left  in  the  end  unanswered;  or 
rather  it  is  answered,  as  alone  it  can  be,  by 
a  simple  judgment  of  faith.  Those  who  have 
known  Christ  are  conscious  of  his  presence, 
beside  them  and  within  them.  They  are 
made  one  with  himself,  and  with  the  Father 
throuo^h  him. 


^fc) 


65 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

X.    THE   ETERNAL   CHRIST 

So  it  is  by  uniting  us  with  himself  that 
Christ  bestows  on  us  his  gift.  The  Gospel 
describes  how  he  sojourned  with  his  first 
disciples,  and  how  they  were  quickened  to 
new  life  by  their  immediate  intercourse 
with  the  Son  of  God.  But  the  thought  of 
that  wonderful  history  brings  with  it  a  great 
problem.  Did  the  work  of  Christ  avail  only 
for  the  particular  time  and  for  the  small 
circle  of  personal  followers,  to  which  he 
came?  Holding  as  he  does  that  life  must 
be  transmitted  directly  from  the  living  Sav- 
iour, the  evangelist  may  seem  to  have 
driven  himself  to  this  mournful  conclusion. 
He  cannot  take  refuge  in  any  theory  of  the 
perennial  value  of  Christ's  message,  or  of 
some  redeeming  act  performed  by  him  once 
for  all.  We  cannot  receive  the  life  except 
through  the  Person,  to  whom  we  have  ac- 
cess no  more. 

66 


THE  ETERNAL  CHRIST 

The  solution  to  this  problem  is  found  in 
the  deeper  interpretation  of  a  belief  which 
held  a  cardinal  place  in  primitive  Christian 
theology.  The  early  disciples,  identifying 
Jesus  with  the  Messiah  of  Jewish  tradition, 
were  confident  that  he  would  presently  re- 
turn to  bring  in  his  everlasting  Kingdom. 
His  earthly  life  had  closed  in  apparent  fail- 
ure, but  he  would  vindicate  the  faith  of  his 
people  by  a  second  coming,  which  would 
reveal  him  to  the  world  in  his  true  sover- 
eignty. It  was  this  hope  that  sustained  the 
Apostles  in  the  face  of  unbelief  and  oppo- 
sition; but  as  time  went  on,  and  the  Lord 
delayed  his  coming,  the  ardour  of  confi- 
dence gave  way  to  doubt  and  disappoint- 
ment. We  have  evidence  in  the  later  books 
of  the  New  Testament  of  the  mood  of  de- 
pression which  was  beginning  to  chill  the 
energies  of  the  church.  To  the  minds  of  not 
a  few,  the  whole  Christian  message  seemed 
to  have  fallen  to  the  ground  with  the  fail- 

67 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

ure  of  the  great  promise  on  which  it  had 
first  rested.  The  fourth  evangelist,  how- 
ever, falls  back  on  the  primitive  hope  and 
re-affirms  it,  even  more  strenuously.  He 
declares  that  the  early  disciples  had  only 
been  mistaken  as  to  the  manner  of  the 
Lord's  return.  The  promise  had  referred 
not  to  a  visible  advent,  manifest  to  all  the 
world,  but  to  an  inward,  spiritual  coming 
of  which  none  would  be  aware  but  the 
Lord's  own  people.  And  in  this  sense  Jesus 
had  already  fulfilled  his  promise.  By  his 
death  he  had  ascended  to  God,  re-assuming 
the  glory  which  he  had  from  the  begin- 
ning; and  his  return  to  the  Father  was  at 
the  same  time  a  return  to  his  people,  in  a 
closer  and  more  pervading  presence.  The 
"  little  while  "  of  his  departure  was  not  a 
period  to  be  measured  by  months  or  years; 
but  was  merely  the  short  interval  between 
his  death  and  his  Resurrection.  In  the 
same  act  by  which  he  rose  again,  he  had 
68 


THE  ETERNAL  CHRIST 

entered  on  his  endless  life;  and  from  that 
time  onward  he  had  been  dwelling  with 
his  people,  —  invisible,  but  even  nearer  to 
them,  and  more  of  a  present  help,  than  he 
had  been  at  first.  His  earthly  life  had  been 
subject  to  many  limits  and  obstructions.  He 
had  manifested  himself  under  the  condi- 
tions of  space  and  time.  He  had  lived  in  the 
flesh,  separate  from  his  disciples,  and  they 
could  only  know  him  externally,  as  men 
know  one  another.  His  intercourse  with 
them  had  been  fitful  and  imperfect  at  the 
best,  and  had  finally  been  broken  off  by 
death.  But  the  limitations  that  had  been 
placed  on  his  first  appearance  had  now 
fallen  away,  and  he  had  returned;  or  rather 
he  had  continued,  under  new  and  larger 
conditions,  the  selfsame  life  in  which  he 
had  been  known  to  his  disciples.  We  read 
in  the  Supper  discourses  how  the  Lord 
would  henceforth  reveal  himself  as  an  all- 
pervasive,  inward,   eternal  presence.    He 

69 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

would  be  near  to  all  his  people,  however 
they  might  be  scattered  over  the  wide  world. 
He  would  dwell  with  them,  not  outwardly 
as  before,  but  in  their  very  hearts.  Their 
joy  in  his  fellowship  would  be  uninter- 
rupted by  any  earthly  change  or  accident, 
and  would  remain  the  same  forever.  Thus 
the  seeming  departure  of  Christ  had  been 
only  the  commencement  of  his  true  and 
eternal  abode  with  men.  Those  who  had 
not  seen,  yet  had  believed,  could  hold  com- 
munion with  him  as  his  own  disciples  had 
done,  and  could  know  him  even  more 
closely  and  personally.  They  could  receive 
him  into  their  hearts,  and  participate  in 
his  life. 

This  doctrine  of  the  Return  of  Christ  is 
complicated  and  partly  obscured  by  the 
references  to  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  alter- 
nate with  it  throughout  the  Supper  dis- 
courses. Almost  in  the  same  breath  in 
which  he  speaks  of  his  own  coming,  Jesus 
70 


THE  ETERNAL  CHRIST 

tells  his  disciples  of  the  "Comforter"  or 
"Advocate"  who  would  take  his  place 
after  he  had  himself  departed.  In  these 
allusions  to  the  Holy  Spirit  we  may  discern 
an  effort,  on  the  part  of  the  evangelist,  to 
combine  an  earlier  Pauline  conception  with 
his  own  characteristic  thought.  Paul  had 
regarded  the  union  with  Christ  as  mediated 
by  the  Spirit,  the  new  divine  power  which 
was  now  operative  in  the  Christian  Church. 
His  idea  of  the  Spirit  is  vitally  bound  up 
with  his  theology  as  a  whole;  but  in  the 
fourth  Gospel  it  seems  only  to  express, 
under  a  different  form,  a  thought  which  is 
already  complete  in  itself.  The  Spirit  is 
another  name  for  Christ.  His  promise  of 
its  coming  is  included  in  the  greater  prom- 
ise of  his  own  personal  return  to  his  peo- 
ple. So  far  as  an  independent  value  can 
be  attached  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit,  it 
serves  to  bring  into  special  prominence 
one  aspect  of  the  abiding  work  of  Christ. 

71 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

He  had  come  as  the  revelation  of  God; 
but  his  earthly  life  did  not  exhaust  the 
revelation.  There  were  many  things  which 
he  desired  to  say  to  his  disciples;  but  the 
time  was  short  and  their  hearts  were  un- 
prepared, and  he  had  disclosed  only  a 
little  portion  of  the  truth.  But  he  be- 
queathed the  Spirit  to  them  as  a  perma- 
nent source  of  revelation.  In  the  possession 
of  it  they  would  be  guided  into  the  hidden 
meanings  of  all  that  he  had  done  and 
spoken.  They  would  be  enabled  to  read 
his  past  message  in  its  bearing  on  new 
times  and  circumstances,  and  to  develop 
it,  age  after  age,  to  ever  higher  and  larger 
issues.  The  Spirit,  sent  by  him  from  the 
Father,  would  speak  in  his  name,  and  its 
utterances  would  carry  the  same  authority 
as  his  own  recorded  words. 
•  In  his  doctrine  of  the  Spirit,  therefore, 
the  evangelist  gives  expression  to  an  in- 
finitely fruitful  thought,  which  has  hardly 
72 


THE  ETERNAL  CHRIST 

yet  come  to  its  own  in  the  accepted  faith 
of  the  church.  He  maintains  that  Chris- 
tianity is  not  bound  down  to  any  unchange- 
able tradition  or  dogma.  It  is  the  absolute 
because  it  is  the  living  and  ever-growing 
religion.  It  possesses  within  itself  an  end- 
less power  of  development,  and  of  re-adjust- 
ment to  new  conditions  and  needs.  In  each 
successive  generation  its  message  is  able 
to  clothe  itself  in  changing  forms;  while 
through  them  all  it  remains  the  authentic 
message  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  revelation  in 
history  was  never  meant  to  stand  alone. 
From  our  knowledge,  rather,  of  what  Jesus 
was  when  he  appeared  on  earth,  we  can 
discern  him  still,  and  receive  the  new 
truth  which  he  imparts  to  us  through  his 
living  Spirit.  The  fourth  Gospel  itself  is 
the  grandest  illustration  of  this  profound 
and  far-reaching  doctrine.  Writing  in  a 
new  century,  for  a  people  of  alien  race  and 
culture,  the  evangelist  goes  back  to  the 
73 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

teaching  of  Jesus;  but  he  does  not  simply 
reproduce  it  as  it  had  been  handed  down. 
He  translates  it  into  new  language;  he  in- 
terprets it  with  the  aid  of  later  theological 
forms ;  he  brings  it  into  relation  to  contem- 
porary problems  and  interests,  which  had 
not  yet  emerged  in  the  Master's  own  life- 
time. Literally  considered  the  message  is 
different  from  that  which  had  come  down 
in  the  tradition.  The  words  attributed  to 
Jesus  had  not  actually  fallen  from  his  lips, 
and  the  whole  picture  of  his  earthly  life 
and  surroundings  is  in  many  respects  al- 
tered. Yet  the  writer  claims  authority  for 
his  Gospel.  He  is  convinced  that  he,  as 
truly  as  the  Synoptists,  is  recording  the 
deeds  of  Jesus  and  the  words  he  spoke. 
For  through  the  historical  life  he  has  a 
vision  of  the  eternal  life.  The  literal  teach- 
ing has  been  illuminated  to  him  and  filled 
with  new  meanings  and  applications.  Nearly 
a  century  had  passed  by  since  Jesus  had  de- 

74 


PERMANENT  VALUE  OF  THE  GOSPEL 

parted;  and  through  all  those  years  his 
revelation  had  been  unfolding  itself,  under 
the  growing  light  of  the  world's  thought 
and  knowledge.  This  later  revelation  — 
the  Gospel  would  teach  us  —  was  continu- 
ous with  the  first.  Behind  the  things  which 
Jesus  had  spoken  there  were  those  which 
he  had  left  unsaid,  and  which  were  now 
declaring  themselves  to  his  disciples 
through  his  Spirit  of  truth, 

XI.  PERMANENT  VALUE  OF  THE  GOSPEL 

It  would  be  difficult  to  over-estimate  the 
influence  of  the  fourth  Gospel  on  the  sub- 
sequent history  of  Christianity.  Unlike  the 
other  writers  of  the  New  Testament  the 
evangelist  addressed  himself  directly  to  the 
Gentile  churchy  in  which  the  religion  of 
Jesus  was  to  find  its  chief  fulfilment;  and 
he  may  be  said  to  have  marked  out  the  di- 
rection which  the  great  stream  of  Christian 
thought  was  henceforth  to  follow.    It  was 

75 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

due  in  large  measure  to  the  influence  of 
his  Gospel  that  Christianity  remained  true 
to  its  original  character,  amidst  the  many 
disturbing  forces  of  the  second  and  third 
centuries.  At  a  time  when  the  primitive 
tradition  was  in  danger  of  perishing,  this 
great  teacher  re-asserted  it,  and  embodied 
it  in  new  and  living  forms.  He  gathered 
up  into  one  final  utterance  the  whole  mes- 
sage of  the  Apostolic  Age.  The  Synoptic 
history,  the  theology  of  Paul,  the  hopes 
and  beliefs  of  the  early  disciples  were  all 
harmoniously  blended  in  his  Gospel,  and 
became  the  lasting  inheritance  of  the  Gen- 
tile church.  It  must  never  be  forgotten 
that  the  primary  aim  of  our  evangelist  was 
to  maintain  the  faith  as  it  had  been  at  the 
beginning.  From  the  age  immediately  be- 
hind him  he  received  the  message  of  the 
Apostles,  and  sought  to  bring  it  home,  as 
a  saving  power,  to  his  own  generation. 
But  in  the  very  effort  to  preserve  what  was 

76 


K   PEF 


PERMANENT  VALUE  OF  THE  GOSPEL 

essential  in  it,  he  was  led  to  introduce  cer- 
tain new  elements,  which  profoundly  af- 
fected all  the  later  development. 

(i)  He  availed  himself  of  categories  of 
thought,  unknown  to  the  primitive  age, 
which  were  derived  mainly  from  the  phi- 
losophjT'  of  Greece.  These  new  categories 
were  in  many  ways  well  fitted  to  express 
Christian  ideas ;  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
something  was  lost  by  the  adoption  of  them. 
The  teaching  of  Jesus  became  abstract  and 
mystical,  instead  of  simple  and  direct.  An 
appeal  was  made  to  the  intellect  more  than 
to  the  underlying  instincts  of  the  moral  and 
religious  life.  The  loss,  however,  was  coun- 
ter-balanced by  undoubted  gains.  Chris- 
tianity was  now  enabled  to  present  itself  to 
the  Western  peoples  under  forms  of  thought 
and  language  which  they  could  understand. 
Not  only  so,  but  it  was  brought  into  alli- 
ance with  new  forces  that  worked  hence- 
forth for  its  enrichment.  It  asserted  itself 
77 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

heir  to  five  centuries  of  Greek  thinking.  It 
was  acclimatised  in  the  general  culture  of 
the  time,  and  penetrated  it  more  and  more 
with  its  own  spirit.  To  the  fourth  evan- 
gelist, more  than  to  any  other  teacher,  the 
church  was  indebted  for  the  mighty  pro- 
gress of  the  next  three  centuries.  He  trans- 
planted the  new  religion  from  its  Jewish 
soil  into  another,  where  it  could  take  deep 
root  and  send  out  its  branches  freely. 

(2)  The  early  apocalyptic  ideas  were 
changed,  in  the  fourth  Gospel,  into  their 
spiritual  equivalents.  This  was  a  great  and 
necessary  change,  the  full  importance  of 
which  we  are  just  beginning  to  realise,  in 
the  light  of  a  better  knowledge  of  the  New 
Testament  times.  The  members  of  the 
primitive  church  were  unable  to  grasp  the 
message  of  Christ  apart  from  certain  beliefs 
which  they  had  inherited  from  Judaism. 
They  looked  for  an  approaching  end  of  the 
world,  for  a  visible  coming  of  the  Messiah 

78 


PERMANENT  VALUE  OF  THE   GOSPEL 

on  the  clouds  of  heaven,  for  a  literal  Day  of 
Judgment.  Even  Paul,  while  he  discarded 
the  Jewish  legalism,  held  firmly  to  those 
apocalyptic  conceptions;  and  his  teaching 
has  constantly  to  be  disentangled  from  them 
before  we  can  understand  its  real  import. 
In  the  fourth  Gospel,  however,  the  great 
Christian  ideas  are  set  before  us  in  their 
purity.  They  are  no  longer  involved  in  those 
wrappings  of  myth  and  imagination  which 
in  course  of  time  might  have  smothered 
them  altogether.  The  dramatic  advent  of  the 
Messiah  becomes  the  return  of  Jesus  as  an 
inward  presence  with  his  people.  The  judg- 
ment ceases  to  be  a  definite  event  in  the 
future,  and  is  conceived  as  something  pres- 
ent and  always  in  process,  —  a  continual 
sifting  out  of  men  by  their  attitude  to  the 
light.  By  this  dissolving  of  the  old  apoca- 
lyptic hopes,  the  evangelist  broke  away 
from  much  that  was  characteristic  of  earlier 
Christianity;  but  in  so  doing  he  only  af- 

19 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

firmed  more  clearly  the  essential  Christian 
message.  It  was  preserved  for  the  time  to 
come  in  its  true  character,  as  inward  and 
spiritual. 

(3)  The  evangelist  made  it  evident,  once 
for  all,  that  the  central  fact  in  Christianity 
is  the  Person  of  Christ.  No  doubt  he  pre- 
sents this  great  truth  under  doctrinal  forms 
which  belonged  to  a  given  age,  and  have 
now  in  large  measure  lost  their  value.  It 
might  be  argued  that  the  whole  attempt  to 
construe  the  Person  of  Christ  theologically 
was  a  mistaken  one,  and  tended  to  divert 
the  church  from  its  true  mission.  An  ortho- 
dox belief  came  to  be  the  one  criterion  of 
the  religious  life.  Christian  thought  ex- 
hausted itself  in  endless  efforts  —  futile  by 
their  very  nature  —  to  define  the  mystery  of 
the  Godhead,  and  the  precise  relation  be- 
tween the  Father  and  the  Son.  For  much 
of  the  fruitless  controversy  of  the  succeed- 
ing centuries  the  fourth  evangelist  must 
80 


PERMANENT  VALUE  OF  THE  GOSPEL 

be  held  responsible.  But  the  controversy, 
however  misdirected  in  itself,  had  behind 
it  the  great  conviction  which  he  had  be- 
queathed to  the  Christian  Church.  Christ,  in 
his  own  Person,  is  the  revelation.  Through 
knowledge  of  him  and  participation  in  his 
spirit,  we  have  access  to  God. 

The  value  of  the  fourth  Gospel,  how- 
ever, is  not  to  be  measured  by  its  historical 
influence  on  the  faith  and  development  of 
the  church.  It  holds  a  place  of  its  own, 
—  sacred  and  apart  even  among  the  books 
of  the  New  Testament,  —  as  the  devotional 
Gospel,  which  has  moulded  and  nurtured 
the  Christian  piety  of  all  ages.  The  tradi- 
tion which  assigns  it  to  a  Beloved  Disciple 
is  true  in  essence,  if  not  in  literal  fact.  We 
can  recognise  in  the  unknown  evangelist 
one  who  had  entered  into  the  inner  secret 
of  the  life  of  Christ.  He  has  taught  us,  out 
of  his  own  deep  experience,  how  the  Mas- 
ter who  departed  long  ago  is  still  a  living 
8i 


THE  FOURTH   GOSPEL 

presence  with  those  who  love  him;  and 
Christian  men  have  ever  found  in  his  Gos- 
pel the  largest  and  tenderest  expression  of 
their  personal  faith.  The  language  they 
have  learned  from  it  comes  naturally  to 
their  hearts,  when  they  hold  their  own 
communion  with  Christ. 

The  ultimate  purpose  of  the  Gospel  was 
this  which  it  has  fulfilled,  in  ampler  meas- 
ure than  the  evangelist  could  dream  of.  He 
wrote  a  "spiritual  Gospel/'  which  should 
not  merely  record  the  facts  of  history,  but 
should  interpret  them  in  their  inward  and 
abiding  reality.  He  saw  that  the  life  which 
had  once  been  manifest  for  a  little  time  in 
a  remote  land,  was  the  revelation  of  God; 
and  he  sought  to  detach  it  from  all  that  was 
transient  and  accidental,  and  show  forth  its 
meaning  for  all  time.  Jesus  who  lived  and 
died,  was  the  Son  of  God.  He  is  still  pres- 
ent with  his  people;  and  those  who  have 
not  seen  yet  have  believed,  may  hold  fel- 
82 


PERMANENT  VALUE  OF  THE  GOSPEL 

lowship  with  him  and  have  life  through 
his  name.  It  is  true  that  in  this  endeavour 
to  portray  Jesus,  in  his  earthly  ministry,  as 
the  ever-living  Christ,  the  evangelist  has 
modified  and  idealised  the  facts.  As  a  work 
of  history  his  Gospel  is  secondary  to  the 
Synoptic  records;  and  its  evidence  must 
always  be  sifted  and  controlled  by  means 
of  them.  Yet  it  possesses  an  inestimable 
value  even  for  the  history.  We  cannot  un- 
derstand what  Jesus  was,  while  he  yet  so- 
journed among  men,  until  we  learn  to  see 
him,  with  the  fourth  evangelist,  in  the 
eternal  significance  of  his  life. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S   .  A 


MODERN 

RELIGIOUS 

PROBLEMS 


EDITED  BY 

DR.  AMBROSE  W.  VERNON 


For  a  long  time  there  has  been  an  atmosphere  of 
uncertainty  in  the  religious  realm.  This  uncertainty- 
has  been  caused  by  the  widespread  knowledge  that 
modem  scholarship  has  modified  the  traditional  con- 
ceptions of  the  Christian  religion,  and  particularly  by 
widespread  ignorance  of  the  precise  modifications  to 
which  modem  scholarship  has  been  led. 

The  aim  of  this  series  of  books  is  to  lay  before  the 
great  body  of  intelligent  people  in  the  English-speak- 
ing world  the  precise  results  of  this  scholarship,  so 
that  men  both  within  and  without  the  churches  may 
be  able  to  understand  the  conception  of  the  Christian 
religion  (and  of  its  Sacred  Books)  which  obtains 
among  its  leading  scholars  to-day,  and  that  they  may 
intelligently  cooperate  in  the  great  practical  problems 
with  which  the  churches  are  now  confronted. 

While  at  many  a  point  divergent  views  are  cham- 
pioned, it  has  become  apparent  in  the  last  few  years 
that  it  is  possible  to  speak  of  a  consensus  of  opinion 
among  the  leading  scholars  of  England  and  America, 
who  have,  in  general,  adopted  the  modern  point  of 
view. 


The  publishers  and  editor  congratulate  themselves 
that  this  consensus  of  opinion  may  be  presented  to 
the  public  not  by  middle -men,  but  by  men  who  from 
their  position  and  attainment  are  recognized  through- 
out the  English  Protestant  world  as  among  those  best 
able  to  speak  with  authority  on  the  most  important 
subjects  which  face  intelligent  religious  men  to-day. 
It  is  a  notable  sign  of  the  times  that  these  eminent 
specialists  have  gladly  consented  to  pause  in  their  de- 
tailed research,  in  order  to  acquaint  the  religious 
public  with  the  results  of  their  study. 

Modem  Religious  Problems  are  many,  but  they 
fall  chiefly  under  one  of  the  four  divisions  into  which 
this  series  of  books  is  to  be  divided :  — 

I.   The  Old  Testament. 
II.   The  New^  Testament. 

III.  Fundamental  Christian  Conceptions. 

IV.  Practical  Church  Problems. 

Under  these  four  main  divisions  the  most  vital 
problems  will  be  treated  in  short,  concise,  clear  vol- 
umes. They  will  leave  technicalities  at  one  side  and 
they  will  be  published  at  a  price  wjiich  will  put  the 
assured  results  of  religious  scholarship  within  the 
reach  of  all. 

The  volumes  already  arranged  for  are  the  following : 

I.   OLD  TESTAMENT 

"THE    ORIGIN    AND     DEVELOPMENT    OF    THE 
LAW."     By  Canon  S.  R.  DRIVER,  Oxford  University. 

"HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  OLD  TESTAMENT." 

By  Professor  WILLIAM  R.  ARNOLD,  Andover  Semin- 
ary. 

-THE  PRIMITIVE  RELIGION  OF   ISRAEL." 

By  Professor  L.  B.  PATON,  Hartford  Theological  Semin- 
ary. 


11.   NEW  TESTAMENT 

••THE  EARLIEST  SOURCES  FOR  THE  LIFE  OF 
JESUS."  By  Professor  F.  C.  BURKITT,  Cambridge  Uni- 
versity, England.     (In  Press.) 

«*THE   MIRACLES  OF  JESUS." 

By  Professor  F.  C.  PORTER,  Yale  University. 

"THE   FOUNDING  OF  THE  CHURCH." 

By  Professor  B.  W.    BACON,  Yale    University.    (Now 
Ready.) 

"HOW  WE  GOT  OUR  NEW  TESTAMENT." 
By  Professor  J.  H.  ROPES,  Harvard  University. 

"PAUL  AND  PAULINISM." 

By  Rev.  JAMES  MOFFATT,  D.  D.,  Broughty  Ferry, 
Forfarshire,  Scotland. 

"THE  HISTORICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  VALUE  OF 
THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL."  By  Professor  E.  F.  SCOTT, 
Queen's  University,  Kingston.    (In  Press.) 

IIL   FUNDAMENTAL   CHRISTIAN 
CONCEPTIONS 

"THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS." 

By  Professor  G.  W.  KNOX,  Union  Theological  Seminary. 
.  New  York.   With  General  Introduction  to  the  Series.    (Now 
Ready.) 

"THE  GOD  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN." 

By  Professor  A.  C.  McGIFFERT,  Union  Theological  Sem- 
inary. 

"SIN  AND  ITS   FORGIVENESS." 

By  President  WILLIAM  DeW.  HYDE,  Bowdoin  CoUege. 
(Now  Ready.) 

♦THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS." 

By  President  H.  C.  KING,  Oberlin  College. 

"THE  AUTHORITY  OF  THE   SCRIPTURES." 

By  Professor  SHAILER  MATHEWS,  University  of  Chi- 
cago. 


IV.   PRACTICAL  CHURCH   PROBLEMS 

••THE  PLACE  OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  MODERN 
SOCIETY."  By  WM.  JEWETT  TUCKER,  Ex-Presi- 
dent of  Dartmouth  College. 

"THE  CHURCH  AND  LABOR." 

By  CHARLES  STELZLE,  Superintendent  of  Department 
of  the  Church  and  Labor  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  the 
United  States. 

"THE  ADJUSTMENT  OF  THE  BIBLE  SCHOOLS 
TO  MODERN  NEEDS."  By  Professor  CHARLES  F. 
KENT,  Yale  University. 

"THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  CHILD." 

By  Rev.  HENRY  SLOANE  COFFIN,  Madison  Ave. 
Presbyterian  Church,  New  York  City. 

The  general  editor  of  the  series,  Rev.  Ambrose 
White  Vernon,  is  a  graduate  of  Princeton  University 
(1891)  and  of  Union  Theological  Seminary  (1894). 
After  two  years  more  of  study  in  Germany,  on  a  fel- 
lowship, he  had  an  experience  of  eight  years  in  the 
pastorate,  at  Hiawatha,  Kansas,  and  East  Orange, 
New  Jersey.  From  1904  to  1907  he  was  professor  of 
Biblical  literature  in  Dartmouth  College,  and  then 
professor  of  practical  theology  at  Yale  till  the  present 
year,  when  he  returned  to  the  pastorate,  succeeding 
the  late  Dr.  Reuen  Thomas  at  Harvard  Church, 
Brookline,  one  of  the  leading  churches  of  metropoli- 
tan Boston.  Dartmouth  College  gave  him  the  de- 
gree of  D.  D.  in  1907. 

The  volumes  are  attractively  bound  in  cloth.    Thin 
I2m0y  each  ^o  cents  net.    Postage  ^  cents, 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 
4  Park  St.,  Boston :  85  Fifth  Ave.,  New  York 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


MAII  11  1941 

•i^  my  so  BO 

29Wlar'54B  M 
JUL2  21954l\J 

^^eco  CO 

4]an6lPW 

LD  21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 


290ct'6tl,lf 
REC'D  CD 

NOV  15  'isan 

WAR  19  1980 
«£C.  cm    FEB  2  1   198£ 


£4    ^^ 


YB  27989 


